.jpg)
bWho wants a caddy with no balls? Putin locates Obama's problem,
===
I would like to offer two free suggestions:
a) Do not fly on a Russian Airline because of technical problems they have with their planes.
b) Do not fly on an Asian or Middle Eastern Airline regardless of how beautiful their stewardesses.
Muslim and Arab pilots have proven to be unstable.
I rest my case!
===
Obama's weakness causes Israel's Defense Minister to rethink Israel's Iranian strategy. (See 1 below.)
===
Abbas' weak hand. (See 2 below.)
Obama's even weaker according to Glick. (See 2a below.)
===
Maybe I need a new eyeglass prescription but I see a series of inconsistencies:
Liberals approve of pot but want government to clamp down on cigarettes
Liberals do not want us to be independent of foreign oil but we have enough to be so.
Liberals want unions to control our schools but do not complain when kids get a poor education.
Liberals believe Republicans have declared war on women but liberals approved when Obama robbed Medicare to fund Obamacare, so now treatment of female health issues, as well as male, will be underfunded or seriously diminished.
Furthermore, liberals sit idly by as Islamist terrorists, the Taliban and other Muslim fanatics commit horrible and despicable crimes against their gender.
Liberals attack those who believe we should not run deficits that will burden our children and restrict their options and freedoms but are perfectly willing to run these deficits so they can pay for all of their wish list of
programs that create dependency..
Liberals do not believe in a strong military but ignore the historical threat weakness creates in terms of our freedom.
Liberals want to raise taxes so government can expand even in the face of facts that prove this generally leads to less income for the government.
Liberals are against voter identification but see nothing wrong in making people fill out all kind of complex forms for welfare.
Liberals believe government is more capable at making choices for people than people themselves. Does government really know best?
Liberals do not believe capitalism has provided Americans with bounty, it is all government's doing.
Liberals cannot explain why so many of their programs, that have cost untold fortunes, have failed and always believe spending more good money after bad is the only solution.
I do not believe I have overstated the case against liberal thinking and logic.. Therefore, if I am somewhere in the ball park, is it possible liberals really want America to fail? Is it possible liberals have disdain for their fellow citizens who have worked hard, pulled themselves up by their own initiatives and made successes of themselves? Do liberals really believe those who succeed and live within our system of laws are not virtuous role models?
Liberals believe free people should not enjoy their Constitutional Right to bear arms, to hunt, to protect themselves from criminals and, one day, from their government's increasing threat of taking away their God given freedoms.
After years of observation I have come to believe liberalism is a pernicious disease and connotes a mental disorder.
I invite comments!
If the above is, more or less, factually correct then why are Republicans turning their guns on each other? (See 3 below.)
===
New York does not have a welcome mat out for this company so it is moving to Alabama. (See 4 below.)
and
left click on these:
http://www.israpundit.com/
CBN TV - France's Reckoning: Rich, Young Flee Welfare State
===
Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Defense minister leans toward Israeli operation in Iran, as Obama portrays 'weakness'
Based on his evaluation that the United States isn’t going to do anything to frustrate the Iranian nuclear program, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday he’s changed his mind and now leans toward supporting unilateral Israeli action against Iran.
“We had thought the ones who should lead the campaign against Iran is the United States,” said Ya’alon, speaking during an event at Tel Aviv University. “But at some stage the United States entered into negotiations with them, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians were better.”
If Israel had hoped others would do the job for it, this is not about to happen, Ya’alon said: “Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves.”
His words attest to a sea-change in his attitude regarding how Israel should contend with the Iranian nuclear program. Under the previous government, Ya’alon had led the opposition in the security cabinet to a solo Israeli attack on Iran, even exchanging sharp words on the issue with the defense minister at the time, Ehud Barak. Ya’alon had taken the position that “the work of righteous men shall be done by others” – meaning the United States should be the one to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Evidently, he no longer believes this is going to happen, and is nearing the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who signals the belief that Israel should be behaving as though it’s on its own, right now.
Ya’alon was sharply critical on Monday of Washington’s behavior regarding Iran, even hinting that U.S. President Barack Obama would prefer to pass the hot potato to his successor at the White House. “People know that Iran cheats,” Ya’alon said. “But comfortable Westerners prefer to put off confrontation. If possible, to next year, or the next president. But in the end, it will blow up.”
From Iran being “on its knees” thanks to economic pressure and onerous diplomatic isolation, from fearing an internal eruption and military threat, Iran cleverly led a “smile offensive,” Ya’alon said, extracting itself from crisis.
“There have been delays in the nuclear program, but the [interim] agreement [signed between Iran and the superpowers in Geneva] is very convenient for the Iranians,” Ya’alon said. “They’re settling down at the threshold and can decide when to make the breakthrough to a nuclear bomb.”
Ya’alon’s criticism of Obama’s foreign policy didn’t stop with Iran. The minister repeated a number of times during his address that Washington has been showing weakness everywhere in the world. “The moderate Sunni camp in the area expected the United States to support it, and to be firm, like Russia’s support for the Shi’ite axis,” Ya’alon said. “I heard voices of disappointment in the region. I was in Singapore and heard disappointment about China getting stronger and the U.S. getting weaker. Look what’s happening in Ukraine, where the United States is demonstrating weakness, unfortunately.”
If the American government persists in demonstrating weakness on the international front, the United States’ own national security will be badly damaged, Ya’alon said. “If you sit and wait at home, the terrorism will come again,” he said. “Even if you hunker down, it will come. This is a war of civilizations. If your image is feebleness, it doesn’t pay in the world. Nobody will replace the United States as global policeman. I hope the United States comes to its senses. If it doesn’t, it will challenge the world order, and the United States is the one that will suffer.”
Discussing the relations between Israel and the United States on the security and diplomatic fronts, Ya’alon said that U.S. military aid to Israel needs to be “seen in proportion”.
“It isn’t a favor America is doing, it’s in their interest,” he said. Israel not only takes from Washington, the minister added — it also gives. “They get quality intelligence and technology,” he said. “We invented Iron Dome. The wings of the F-35 stealth fighter – we invented. We invented the Arrow,” an anti-ballistic missile.
Ya’alon also took aim at the Israeli left, implying that Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was encouraging international elements to apply pressure to Israel. “We have a serious problem of self-accusation,” he said. “There are circles where Israelis and Arabs meet. The Arabs accuse the Jews and the Jews accuse themselves.”
Hinting plainly at Livni, Ya’alon said, “There are elements within the government that have lost their equilibrium, and blame us” for the failure of negotiations with the Palestinians. “They say, why are we building? [Settlements.] Why don’t we give more? Then it becomes very convenient for everybody outside to pounce on us. We have too much self-accusation, which attracts fire, and causes people to press us and demand concessions.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President who has built his career on his willingness to negotiate, goes to the White House today with his work cut out for him. President Obama will pressure the Palestinian moderate to continue peace negotiations with Israel beyond their April deadline, even though the talks have gone so poorly that Secretary of State John Kerry months ago abandoned hope for a final agreement by next month and made the goal a “framework” statement describing U.S. hopes for a pact.
Abbas, who owes a measure of his position in the Palestinian leadership to Washington’s historical support of his moderate approach, may be personally inclined to give Obama what he wants. He has little personal appetite for the alternative – confrontation, either at the United Nations, which convenes in September, in the marketplace, where activists are promoting a boycott of Israel’s West Bank settlements (or of Israel itself), or even the streets, where violence is lately growing.
But Abbas’ position was a lonely one from the start; the leadership councils of the Palestine Liberation Organization and his own Fatah party strongly opposed even beginning talks last summer. And the days before his departure for Washington showcased how visibly Palestinian politics has fractured in recent months, further undermining Abbas’ claim that he can negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians.
In the Gaza Strip, the population of 1.7 million is governed not by Abbas’ Palestinian Authority but by Hamas, the militant party that won 2006 legislative elections a year after Abbas was elected president. Hamas kicked Fatah out of Gaza in 2007. Founded on a premise of relentless armed resistance, Hamas famously refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, or even the point of negotiations.
“Hamas is not a problem,” Abbas said in a January. “Just leave it to us.” But it appears to be a persistent problem. Just Sunday, when Fatah tried to put its people on the streets of Gaza City – to make the kind of show of popular support for Abbas that was mounted in Ramallah and elsewhere on the West Bank – Hamas barred the demonstration.
Which is not to say Hamas has a firm grip on Gaza. The group has been isolated by neighboring Egypt, which last month declared Hamas a terrorist organization, and appeared powerless last week to prevent Islamic Jihad, a more radical militant group also supported by Iran, from launching scores of rockets into Israel. The barrage breached a ceasefire Hamas had effectively enforced for 16 months, and suggested that Gaza, already divided from the West Bank, was splitting into more political shards.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, home of another 2.5 million Palestinians, Abbas struggled to appear in charge of Fatah, the secular party that has long dominated Palestinian politics. He lashed out on March 10 against a political rival he had already cast into exile three years ago – the former Fatah security chief in Gaza, Mohammad Dahlan – claiming Dahlan had ordered six murders and suggesting he had been involved in the mysterious death of Fatah founder Yasser Arafat. “Who killed Yasser Arafat?” Abbas asked a closed meeting of party leadership, in remarks later cleared for publication. “This is not evidence, but indications that deserve consideration.”
It all distracts from Abbas’ ceaseless efforts to burnish the image of statesmanship, and recast the image of the Palestinian movement. It also raises the stakes for the meeting with Obama, given that talks are supported by just half of Palestinians. A large majority feels the negotiations are doomed, according to polls. “Most Palestinians do not trust the process,” says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a polling firm based in Ramallah.
A report in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat says Abbas will leverage the one thing he can offer — his continued participation in the talks. The price, according to the report, will be a freeze on further construction of Jewish settlements, plus the release of more Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Prisoner releases do serve to shore up support for a Palestinian leader, but Al-Hayat says Abbas will up the stakes by demanding freedom for two prisoners who are leaders themselves: Ahmed Sa’adat, head of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah activist so popular he often prevailed in presidential polls even while a prisoner.
It would be a bold request. Sa’adat was sentenced to 30 years in 2008 by an Israeli court that held him responsible for a 2001 terror attack that killed Israel’s tourism minister. Barghouti was sentenced to five life terms in 2004 for ordering terror attacks during the Second Intifada. “He should rot in jail until he dies,” Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz posted on Facebook after hearing the report. The release of either would revivify the Palestinian political landscape simply by virtue of being what those politics have ceased to be – unexpected.
2a) If Putin remains anti-American, he need not worry about Obama
By Caroline B. Glick
A black president suffering 'white guilt' and the destruction he's left in his wake
Just before Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated Russia's takeover of Crimea, the US's Broadcasting Board of Governors that controls Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty announced that it will be ending its broadcast to Iraq and the Balkans next year.
And this makes sense. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, Iraq ceased to exist in 2011, when the last US forces got out of the country.
As for the Baltics, well, really who cares about them? Russia, after all, wants the same things America does. Everything will be fine.
As Obama said to Governor Mitt Romney during one of the 2012 presidential debates, "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years."
During the election, Obama was famously caught on an open microphone promising President Putin's stand-in Dmitry Medvedev that he would have "more flexibility," on missile defense after the presidential election.
He asked Medvedev to ask Putin to give him "more space" until after November 2012.
With a five-and-half-year record of selling US allies like Poland, the Czech Republic and even the Syrian opposition out to please Putin, it should be obvious that Obama will do nothing effective to show Putin the error of his ways in Ukraine.
Obama doesn't have a problem with Putin. And as long as Putin remains anti-American, he will have no reason to be worried about Obama.
Consider Libya. Three years ago this week, NATO forces supported by the US began their campaign to bring down Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
As Patrick Coburn noted in The Independent over the weekend, the same Western forces who insisted that their "responsibility to protect" the Libyan people from a possible massacre by Gaddafi's forces compelled them to bring down Gaddafi and his regime have had nothing to say today about the ongoing bloodbath in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Libya is disintegrating today. There is no central governing authority.
But Gaddafi, the neutered dictator who quit the terrorism and nuclear-proliferation rackets after the US-led invasion of Iraq, is gone. So no one cares.
Coburn mentioned the recent documentary aired on Al Jazeera - America that upended the West's narrative that the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was the work of the Libyan government. According to a credible Iranian defector, the attack was ordered by Iran and carried out by Palestinian terrorists from Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC.
He wrote, "the documentary emphasizes the sheer number of important politicians and senior officials over the years who must have looked at intelligence reports revealing the truth about Lockerbie, but still happily lied about it."
If the Al Jazeerah documentary is correct, there is good reason for the public in the US, Europe and throughout the world to be angry about the cover-up.
But there is no reason to be surprised.
Since its inception, the Iranian regime has been at war with the US. It has carried out one act of aggression after another. These have run the gamut from the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and holding hostage US diplomats for 444 days, to the use of Lebanese and Palestinian proxies to murder US officials, citizens and soldiers in countless attacks over the intervening 35 years, to building a military presence in Latin America, to developing nuclear weapons.
And from its earliest days, the same Iranian regime has been courted by one US administration after another seeking to accommodate Tehran.
A similar situation obtains with the Palestinians. Like the Iranians, the PLO has carried out countless acts of terrorism that have killed US officials and citizens.
From the 1970 Fatah execution of the US ambassador and deputy chief of mission in Khartoum to the 2003 bombing of the US embassy convoy in Gaza, the PLO has never abandoned terrorism against the US.
No less importantly, the PLO is the architect of modern terrorism. From airline hijackings, to the massacre of schoolchildren, from bus bombings to the destabilization of nation states, the PLO is the original author of much of the mayhem and global terrorism the US has led the fight against since the 1980s.
And of course, the PLO's main stated goal is the destruction of Israel, the US's only dependable ally, and the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
Yet, as has been the case with the Iranian regime, successive US administrations have courted, protected and upheld the PLO as moderate, reformed or almost reformed militants.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Facts and Factions
By Thomas Sowell
At a time when polls show public opinion turning against the Democrats, some Republicans seem to be turning against each other. Even with the prospect of being able to win control of the Senate in this fall's elections, some Republicans are busy manufacturing ammunition for their own circular firing squad.
A Republican faction's demonization of their own Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is a classic example. If you listen to some of those who consider themselves the only true conservatives, you would never guess that Senator McConnell received a lifetime 90 percent ranking by the American Conservative Union -- and in one recent year had a 100 percent ranking.
Ann Coulter -- whose conservative credentials nobody has ever challenged -- points out in her column that Mitch McConnell has not only led the fight for conservative principles repeatedly, but has been to the right of Ted Cruz on immigration issues.
Someone once said that, in a war, truth is the first casualty. That seems to be the case for some in this internal war among Republicans. As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts."
Why should those of us who are not Republicans be concerned about any of this?
Fortunately or unfortunately, we have a two-party system in this country. And -- very unfortunately -- we are at a crucial point in the history of America, and perhaps approaching a point of no return.
The unfolding disaster of ObamaCare is only the most visible symptom of a far deeper danger from a lawless administration in Washington that unilaterally changes laws passed by Congress. President Obama has nearly three more years to continue doing irreparable damage to the fundamental basis of American government and Americans' freedom.
Only Republican control of the Senate can rein in the lawless Obama administration, which can otherwise load up the federal courts with lawless judges, who will be dismantling the rule of law and destroying the rights of the people, for decades after Barack Obama himself is long gone from the White House.
Once that happens, even a future Republican majority, led by people with the kind of ideological purity that the Republican dissidents want, cannot undo the damage.
The Senate's power to confirm or not confirm presidential nominees to the federal courts is the only thing that can prevent Barack Obama from leaving that kind of toxic legacy in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
Only Republican control of both houses of Congress can repeal, or even seriously revise, ObamaCare. And only Republican control of both houses of Congress plus the White House can begin to reverse the many lawless, reckless and dangerous policies of the Obama administration, at home and overseas.
This year's elections and the 2016 presidential election may be among the most important elections in the history of this country, and can determine what kind of country this will be for years -- and even generations -- to come.
Those Republicans who seem ready to jeopardize their own party's chances of winning these two crucial elections by following a rule-or-ruin fight against fellow Republicans may claim to be following their ideals. But headstrong self-righteousness is not idealism, and it is seldom a way to advance any cause.
Politics, like war, is a question of power. If you don't have power, you can make fiery speeches or even conduct attention-getting filibusters, but that does not fundamentally change anything. And it has accomplished nothing in this case.
No doubt there can be legitimate differences of opinion about tactics and strategy on particular issues. But, if you don't have power, these are just empty clashes over debating points.
Certainly there has been much for which the Republican leadership has deserved to be criticized over the years -- and this column has made such criticisms for decades. But, when the question is whether Mitch McConnell is preferable to Harry Reid as Majority Leader in the Senate, that is not even a close call.
If the rule-or-ruin faction among Republicans ends up giving the Democrats another Senate majority under Harry Reid, not only the Republican Party but the entire nation, and generations yet unborn, will end up paying the price.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Remington, one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, will
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The Constitution serves to protect individual freedoms. Among them are those guaranteed in the Second Amendment, which protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. We will protect the freedoms of individuals and welcome any one or any company to Alabama to discover as so many have, that we are a pro-business state filled with good, hardworking people.“If Gov. Cuomo doesn’t want hard working pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment people in his state, we will gladly take them here in Alabama.”Elections are a battle, Liberty is the war.
No comments:
Post a Comment